


Singles

by ConceptaDecency



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: A bit sad, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, probably requited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-23 19:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConceptaDecency/pseuds/ConceptaDecency
Summary: Cardassians touch all the time, and Garak is starved for it. Doctor Bashir (unwittingly?) helps him out.





	Singles

**Author's Note:**

> It's a little wistful, folks, but I think there's room for hope.

Cardassians constantly touch. They have their hands all over each other. Arms, thighs, and feet are constantly brushing up, and two or more Cardassians who are in the least bit friendly will generally be leaning on each other as if they simply can't stand unsupported. This extends even to work colleagues or casual acquaintances, to say nothing of close friends or family members. And such touches are not particularly sexual or otherwise intimate, no, though they might be interpreted as such by other species, like humans. They’re just part of the everyday ebb and flow of social interaction Cardassians have with each other, as natural as saying hello. 

Very few people on the station touch Garak, or are touched by him. Outside of his work, of course, which necessarily involves adjusting of lapels or brushing down of sleeves, and of course he’s aware that too much of that, or too long, as would be normal among his own people, would be looked upon very differently to what he intends by the Bajorans and humans and most of the other people who make up his client base. Only Doctor Bashir touches Garak in any way even remotely resembling the Cardassian fashion. The hand on the small of the back, or on the arm when making a point. The casual brushing of shoulders when they walk somewhere together — and he walks awfully close for a non-Cardassian. 

Garak isn’t sure why this is. Some humans are more tactile with friends than others, and Bashir seems to be one of those humans. Although the doctor doesn’t touch Dax or O’Brien nearly as much as he touches Garak. So it could simply be that Garak reciprocates the touch and thus signals encouragement, whereas the others do not. 

It could also be flirtation. Actually, there’s definitely an element of that, if Garak is any judge of human body language (and he is) but whether it goes beyond light flirtation doesn’t bear thinking about. 

In any case, at the moment the doctor is not touching Garak. They are standing in the queue at the crowded Replimat and the Doctor is expounding on tennis, that Earth sport he is very fond of. Garak has made the mistake of asking how Doctor Bashir injured his shoulder (now perfectly healed, of course) and this question has launched the doctor into a detailed, and dull, explanation of the different kinds of serves one can perform in this sport. Evidently one of them is the cause of the doctor's poor injured shoulder. 

The explanation is dull, but Doctor Bashir is not. If necessary, Garak will steer the talk to their most recent book and politics and other things when they sit down to eat, but for now he's content to bask in the enthusiasm that radiates from the young man as he goes over the difference between a flat serve, a slice serve, and a kick serve. Even more satisfying is the way his lithe body moves as he demonstrates for Garak, miming tossing up a ball, drawing his arm back, and hitting it with the ghost of a racquet. Much to the annoyance of the grumpy Bajoran man ahead of them in the queue, whom the doctor doesn't seem to notice he's narrowly missed swatting in the back of the head a few times already. 

"But Doctor, I'm afraid I still don't understand how a kick serve can be such a hazard to one's, what did you call, it, rotary cuff," says Garak. The connection is clear enough, actually, but Garak is hoping the doctor will demonstrate again. Partly to further vex the Bajoran, who's a fellow shop owner and who was quite unnecessarily rude to Garak at the last DS9 Merchants' Guild meeting, but mostly so that he can see the doctor's long arms and legs move so beautifully. It might not bear thinking about actually going down the road of serious flirtation and possibly more with Doctor Bashir, but Garak is a flesh and blood being and he has urges just like everyone else, and the unexpectedly graceful movements of the good doctor's body will provide his imagination with ample fodder for later, when he's spending another evening regrettably alone in his quarters. 

On Cardassia, he had his own apartment, much bigger and more luxurious than his single sad room on the station. But he was rarely in it except to sleep or work. Cardassians, even Obsidian Order agents, are rarely alone. And so, like most adult children without families or partners of their own (not a common occurrence on Cardassia beyond one's early adulthood), seven evenings out of eight he was at his parents’, or more correctly Mila’s rooms in Tain's house, and after the evening meal they’d collapse into a pile on Mila's sofa and talk or read or watch the news holos, bodies pressing together in comforting communion. More often than not a neighbour or some of the cousins or aunts or uncles visiting from the countryside would be in the heap too, and even Tain would join them a few times a week. No Cardassian, even the feared head of the Obsidian Order, could go for too long without extended bodily contact. It would be better to go without eating. 

This is why his exile is so cruel. He sits on his sofa of an evening, alone, reading or working or watching the news holo, and he misses the press of other bodies on his, the motion of other people's breathing and talking and laughing. The smell of hair and scales and oils. The empty feeling steals under his skin and leaves him hollow, like there's nothing between his scales and his bones, and so he goes to bed and masturbates for distraction and relaxation and tries to fall asleep before he can think or feel too much. He's thought about inviting the doctor to his sofa, explaining to the doctor how important touch is to Cardassians, but the danger is that, even after explanation, Garak's intentions will be misconstrued as sexual (Bashir is a very sexual man), and that would be dangerous. Not that he wouldn't love to embark on a sexual relationship with such a beautiful, sensual, intelligent young man as Doctor Bashir, but Garak has too much to lose should things go wrong, and thus they will remain friends and nothing more. 

The beautiful doctor, however, is not re-demonstrating this famous kick serve. No, he is biting the inside of his cheek and furrowing his brow and looking at Garak. "Rotator cuff, actually. I'm not sure how else...no, look, hold this," says the doctor, and pushes his PADD into Garak's hand. 

"Doctor, I don't see..." says Garak, but he is silenced as the doctor slips behind him and gently grabs his wrist. 

"Okay, Garak. The PADD is your racquet. Hold it like this, so when you shake your hand it's loose." The doctor shakes Garak's hand by the wrist and Garak allows his grip on the PADD to loosen so that the PADD wobbles slightly. "That's it! Now turn your body this way," the doctor asserts a slight pressure on Garak's hip and steers him to the correct position, "and put your left foot here, along this line." He indicates a line between sheets of metal on the floor. "Perfect. Okay, so first there's the flat serve. It's very easy. I'll show you." The doctor is letting loose a river of words, not seeming to notice that Garak is not answering, at least not verbally. "Say this is the ball." He stretches his left arm up and throws an imaginary ball towards the next level of the Promenade. "You hit the ball like this. No, like this. Give me your hand. Flat. Boom." The doctor has grabbed Garak's hand, the one with his 'racquet', and helped him to send the invisible 'ball' up into the eaves of the Promenade. 

"Very interesting, Doctor," says Garak, finally, now that the ball has been dispatched. The doctor's hand is still on his, and Garak can feel the man's warm chest nearly, but not quite, touching his scaled back. The front of Doctor Bashir's lower body is also nearly touching him; in fact, Garak's buttocks have brushed against the doctor's hips a few times in the course of this surprising development. He's a little confused, actually. Surely this kind of touching is...rather intimate for humans, especially in public? Perhaps it makes a difference that a sport is being demonstrated? 

Garak decides that he does not care. Yes, the man is a little awkward, but surely the doctor knows how to follow his own species' social norms in public. In any case, for a Cardassian this kind of touch between friends would be nothing to remark on. And he is starved, _starved_ for touch. In fact, if it came down to it, he'd happily spend the rest of his lunch break learning about tennis from Doctor Bashir and go back to his shop hungry. The afterglow of affectionate touch would sustain him far longer than another subpar replicator meal. 

And so the doctor goes on to demonstrate the second and then the third type of serve, nearly pressed into Garak's back and adjusting his arms and legs and, Guls preserve him, shoulders and neck, and as the queue slowly moves so do they, the doctor somehow getting a tiny bit closer with every shift and shuffle forward as another Replimat patron claims their lunch and heads towards a table.

"Then you have the third type of serve, which is the kick serve, and that’s how I got injured. It involves a rather strange movement. You've got to go from the bottom left, if you’re right-handed," the doctor clasps Garak's right hand in his own, "to the top left. So you’ve got this movement, so the ball starts rotating diagonally. And it goes really high over the net. So when it touches the ground it bounces very high as well."

They've reached the front of the queue, and really should be putting in their orders, but the doctor hasn't finished, hasn't reached the real point of his explanation.

The Tellarite behind them grunts impatiently. 

Garak does nothing. He _will_ do nothing to rush the end of this experience. Let the doctor notice on his own.

"So, what’s the result? It’s a very quote unquote safe serve because it goes high above the net, so you don’t risk...oh, it's our turn." The doctor wilts a little. Garak can hear it in his voice and feel it in his muscles and grip. 

"Unfortunately it is, Doctor. But perhaps we can continue this fascinating discussion another time? You know, you may finally have convinced me to join you in the racquet club. If you don't mind giving a few lessons to an absolute beginner."

The doctor has detached himself from Garak and they are side-by-side, in front of the replicator. It's a loss, but the doctor gives Garak a dazzling smile and firm squeeze to the upper arm, and he isn't really standing so far away. "I'd be delighted! I think I know exactly which racquet you could use. I'll talk to Ybanchi and see what he thinks..."

And so under the glare of the baleful Tellarite they get their meals and go to their usual table, which is free, and discuss the ridiculous fact that historical accuracy has little to do with why some of Shakespeare's plays are considered histories and others aren't, and make a 'date' (but not a 'date', that word is loaded in standard) to play tennis the next day. And that night Garak still feels empty and alone with only ghosts on his sofa, but with the ghost of Doctor Bashir's 'tennis racquet' in one hand, and tomorrow to look forward to, he thinks maybe it's better than it's been in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> How oblivious is Julian really to what Garak needs? I'm not sure. Maybe the tennis 'lesson' was an excuse to take care of someone he cares about.
> 
> The question about Shakespeare's historical plays was inspired by a post and ensuing conversation with [captain-harry-kim](https://captain-harry-kim.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I really appreciate your comments and kudos!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Doubles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20260387) by [zaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaan/pseuds/zaan)
  * [The stories from his lips](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20403016) by [AgrippaSpoleto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgrippaSpoleto/pseuds/AgrippaSpoleto)


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